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He vacillated between believing in an afterlife and cynically regarding it as a myth intended to give people something to hold on to during the worst spates of their lives. Today he found himself somewhere on middle ground. Mostly he was just hoping to get through this without embarrassing his brother’s memory.
“YOU LOOK LIKE THE CAT that swallowed a whole pitcher of cream,” Sheriff Rick Santiago observed as he passed Miss Joan in another part of the diner. He stopped to study the woman who had been one of his late grandmother’s friends. “What are you up to?” he asked. A hint of amusement flared in his green eyes as he regarded the owner of the diner.
Instead of answering the sheriff directly, Miss Joan nodded toward where the new doctor and Rick’s sister-in-law were standing at the counter.
“What do you see?” she asked, her voice deliberately innocent.
Rick glanced in the general direction the woman indicated. But he was accustomed to taking in the bigger picture. “A damn good tally for you at the end of the day.”
Miss Joan’s throaty laugh rumbled between them for a moment. “Well, yeah, there’s that, too, but something more interesting is going on. Look again.”
He narrowed his field of reference and went with the obvious. “We’ve finally gotten a doctor to practice in this one-horse town.”
“To go with the lawyer you got last year,” Olivia chimed in, joining her husband and Miss Joan. As Rick slipped his hand around her waist, drawing her closer, Olivia leaned her head against his shoulder. She was the picture of contentment—as well as pregnancy. “I won’t have a fifty-mile trip in front of me when my water breaks,” she said gratefully. “Looks like civilization has finally come to Forever,” she declared, immensely pleased.
“Looks like more than that from where I’m standing,” Miss Joan propped.
This time Rick and Olivia both looked over toward the diner owner’s reference point.
“Tina’s talking to the new doctor,” Olivia noted. That seemed only natural, considering that Bobby’d had more than his share of earaches and colds this past winter. Tina doted on the boy. Most likely, she was telling the new doctor all about him.
This could go on all afternoon, Miss Joan thought. Deciding to call an end to the fruitless guessing game, she gave them the answer she was waiting for.
“Tina’s also smiling wider than I’ve ever seen her smile,” Miss Joan pointed out.
Olivia narrowed her eyes a little, staring more intently at her sister. So that was it. Miss Joan was playing matchmaker. Well, the woman had certainly picked the wrong target this time.
“If you’re trying to pick out a man for my sister, I really wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you.”
Miss Joan had had several husbands in her lifetime. Three by some people’s count, four by others. And it was rumored that there had also been a number of serious love affairs when she’d been a very young woman. Unattached at present, the woman was nonetheless a romantic at heart and believed that men and women were created solely for the purpose of being paired up.
“Why not?” she asked, her eyes pinning Olivia in place. “Tina’s a young, pretty girl with her head on straight, and in case you haven’t noticed because you only seem to have eyes for Rick here, that new doc’s real easy on the eyes.”
Olivia shook her head. “That’s just the problem,” she informed the older woman.
Miss Joan looked at her for a long moment, clearly confused. “His being easy on the eyes?” she asked, unable to make any sense out of Olivia’s response.
“No, his being good-looking,” Olivia specified. She could see that Miss Joan wasn’t following this line of thinking so she made it clear for the woman. “The guy who almost ended my sister’s life—and who wanted to have their son die with them—was one of the handsomest specimens of manhood ever created. He was downright beautiful,” she concluded.
In that he was very much like the fallen angel, Lucifer, Olivia couldn’t help adding silently. And her sister had fallen for the worthless piece of wasted flesh like the proverbial ton of bricks. Tina had almost paid for her mistake with her life.
“More beautiful than me?” Rick asked teasingly.
She turned her body in toward him, brushing against him and creating a sizzle between them. She put her hand against his cheek, all the love she felt shining in her eyes. “I hate to tell you this, Rick, but you’re not beautiful. You, Sheriff Santiago, are ruggedly handsome. Especially when you come to bed with your badge pinned to your naked chest,” she added with a laugh, punctuating her declaration with a quick kiss. “Now that I’d like to see,” Miss Joan hooted.
“No offense, Miss Joan,” Olivia told the woman for whom she bore a great deal of affection, “but that’s never going to happen.” Her eyes danced as she specified, “That’s for private showings only.”
Miss Joan laughed, her low, Kentucky bourbon voice rumbling mildly. It pleased her more than she could say that Rick had finally found someone who could love him the way he fully deserved to be loved. He’d gone through a lot in his life, not the least of which was magnanimously reconciling with the mother who had abandoned him when he was a kid and his sister had been a year-old baby.
His sister had gone through the same set of hard knocks, in addition to stubbornly resisting the obvious. Luckily, Mona had finally come to her senses and was now engaged to Joe Lone Wolf, the deputy who had loved her from the first moment he’d laid eyes on her all the way back in grade school.
Forever looked forward to celebrating another wedding. Who knew? the woman silently speculated. There might be two in the offing. She had a great deal of affection in her heart for both Tina and her son. They currently lived with her, and while she was content to let the situation continue indefinitely, she knew that wasn’t in the best interest of the girl. Tina needed to have someone in her life to love, someone who loved her back the way she should be loved.
From where she stood, that man could very well be Dr. Dan.
“I can respect that,” Miss Joan said to Olivia. The statement was followed by a broad wink which told the sheriff’s wife that while she might have gotten a few years on her now, beneath it all was still the heart of a lusty, raring-to-go young woman who enjoyed the more physical side of love just as much as she enjoyed the concept of love in general.
Maybe even a little more.
Olivia read between the lines and made an accurate assessment. “Never mind my sister,” she said to the diner owner. “I think we’re going to have to find you a man, Miss Joan.”
Rather than protest that she didn’t know what she was talking about, or silently waving away the notion, Miss Joan treated them both to another wide, and this time unabashedly lusty, grin.
“Well, if you find someone who can keep up with me, Olivia, you know where to bring him. My door’s always open.”
Rick laughed softly. Leaning into his wife, he whispered so that only Olivia could hear him. “My guess is that’s not the only thing that’s ope— Hey!” he cried in surprise as Olivia swatted at him to keep him from finishing his sentence.
“Hush,” Olivia chided, a warning look in her eyes.
It wasn’t that she was afraid the older woman would take offense. It was just that she didn’t want her going off on a bawdy tangent the way she knew Miss Joan was very capable of doing.
Out of hearing range because of the increasing din, Miss Joan laughed at Olivia’s quick movement to silence her husband.
She guessed at the reason behind Olivia’s actions. She’d come to know both sisters very well since they’d arrived in Forever.
“Whatever he was about to say, Livy, I’ve heard ten times worse. My second husband, Bill, flew on helicopter missions. He was a tail gunner in Vietnam during the war. They haven’t invented a cuss word that didn’t come out of Bill’s mouth at one time or another.” She paused a moment. “Come to think of it, Bill wasn’t all that different from my first husband, Ray.”
Putting her memories behind her, Miss Joan shifted her attention to the present and the reason that her diner was filled to overflowing.
“Well, it looks like everybody’s here who’s going to be here,” she decided, then announced to the sheriff and his wife, as well as to several people who could actually hear her without her resorting to a microphone, “That means it’s time to bring out the cake.”
“Cake?” Alma Sanchez, one of Rick’s other deputies piped up, coming closer to her boss and the diner owner. For a woman who had a continuing love affair with all manner of sweets, with pastries at the top of the list, Deputy Alma Sanchez was an exceedingly petite, trim woman. “Did someone say cake?”
“Of course I said cake,” Miss Joan underscored. “You can’t expect to welcome someone properly without having baked a cake in his honor.”
The diner owner’s hazel eyes darted back and forth, taking Rick into account and then zeroing in on Joe, another young boy she’d watched grow to manhood, fulfilling the promise he’d projected years ago. She had no children of her own, but viewed so many of the town’s younger citizens as her own.
Joe was standing a few feet away, talking to his fiancée. She needed to borrow him for a few minutes. “Rick, Joe,” she called, raising her voice, “I need a couple of men with strong backs.”
“Thinking of taking them back to your place, Joan?” Mac Tyler called out, laughing at the joke he thought he’d just made.
“Better them than you, Mac, that’s for sure,” Miss Joan fired back without missing a beat. “If that man’s ego was any bigger,” Miss Joan confided to Olivia in tones that were not as hushed as they could have been, “he wouldn’t be able to get his head through a single doorway.”
Mac Tyler had also been sniffing at her heels for the longest time and at this stage of her life, she still hadn’t made up her mind if she wanted to make something of it or not. She couldn’t decide if Tyler was worth the trouble or the effort.
“C’mon, boys,” Miss Joan gestured to the sheriff and his senior deputy, “I’ve got a cake I need you to bring out of the walk-in.” Glancing over her shoulder, she addressed her words to the people in the diner. “Nobody even think about making a move toward the door. I’m bringing out the cake.”
Appreciative murmurs greeted her declaration. Everyone knew that Miss Joan’s cakes were conceived in heaven and given an earthly form as an afterthought. Rick’s late grandmother, a woman not easily given to offering compliments, had once asked Miss Joan how she kept her cakes from floating away.
As Miss Joan left the room, leading the way for her two helpers, Dan turned to Tina and asked, “She always take charge like that?”
There was more than a little affection in her expression as Tina’s mouth curved. “Actually, this is one of Miss Joan’s more laid-back days,” she said with an amused laugh.
Dan hardly heard her answer. The din in the diner had swallowed them up without so much as a telltale trace. He was forced to watch her mouth again in order to hear what she’d said.
He didn’t really mind.
Chapter Four
“This is it?”
Disbelief permeated Dan’s every syllable. It was a struggle not to allow his mouth to drop open in sheer, stunned amazement.
What the hell did I just get myself into?
That was his initial reaction to the two-story, ram-shackle seventy-five-year-old building that was to serve as both his home and the medical clinic. The ground floor was devoted to a couple of exam rooms, an office he could barely stretch out in and a reception area. The second floor was where the last doctor had lived thirty years ago.
Joe had once again volunteered to be his guide and had brought him here, leading the way in his Jeep, after the welcoming party had wound down. When the deputy had come to a stop before this building, Dan had followed suit. He’d gotten out of his sedan in what felt like surreal slow motion. His eyes were riveted to the dark, inhospitable and, undoubtedly, rotting building.
Dan felt like someone trapped in a nightmare he could only hope would end quickly. Except that it showed no signs of ending any time soon. The building loomed before him like a refugee from a bad, grade B, 1950s horror movie. All that was needed were bats.
Joe shifted ever so slightly, picking up on the other man’s disbelief. In comparison to what he’d known, the old building was in good condition.
“Yeah, this is it,” Joe acknowledged.
Still stunned, Dan turned to the deputy. Maybe this was some kind of a hazing, a prank the town was playing on “the new guy.” How was he supposed to work with this? The place probably leaked when it rained. And if it looked like this on the outside, what did it look like inside? What kind of equipment would he find?
Would he find equipment?
“You’re kidding,” he said to Joe, in fervent hopes that the stoic man had a warped sense of humor.
Joe’s tone was low, soft. Soothing. “It doesn’t look like much now—”
Now, there was a world-class understatement. “Did it ever?” Dan asked, cutting in.
How the hell was he supposed to work in a place like this, much less live in it?
Granted, he was accustomed to places like his late uncle’s spacious house in the Hamptons or the Fifth Avenue apartment that he and Warren had shared during their residency at NYU. Maybe that might have made him a snob in some people’s eyes. But there had to be a happy medium between where he’d come from and this.
The place looked hardly worthy of the label Rundown Shack. He had strong suspicions a massive collection of termites holding hands kept the walls up. If they ever let go, the walls, not like at Jericho, would come tumbling down without any kind of a warning.
He recalled that Warren had seen photographs of the place. The diner woman, Miss Jane or Joan or some name that began with a J, had sent them to him. His brother had never showed the photos to him, but he’d been excited about “the possibilities.”
The only possibility Dan saw was if the house was knocked down and someone started from scratch. And even then, he wasn’t so sure.
How could Warren have willingly agreed to live in this house? In this town? There was dedication and then there was insanity.
“Yeah,” Joe answered his question about what the building had looked like once. “It did. And with a little work,” he maintained rather firmly, “it can look that way again.”
He’d obviously insulted the man’s sense of loyalty to his place of birth, Dan thought. And he hadn’t meant to, but, hell, hopeless was hopeless. And this was hopeless. “Define a little,” Dan muttered under his breath.
“Okay,” Joe allowed reluctantly, “maybe a lot of work. But compared to the place I grew up in, this house looks pretty decent.”
“You grew up in a homeless camp?” The quip was out before Dan could think better of it.
The solemn man was quiet for a long moment. But it was clear that Joe had taken no offense as he replied, “Almost.”
The deputy sounded so serious Dan instantly regretted the offhanded remark. He hadn’t wanted to be disparaging. People were saddled with poverty through no fault of their own. He’d never been, but he and Warren had been two of the lucky ones—at the time, he amended. Until Warren’s luck had run out.
He could feel his gut twisting.
He’d never been good at apologizing, but he gave it a shot. “Hey, I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean to—”
Joe held his hand up as if to push any further apologetic words away. “That’s okay. I grew up on the reservation. It’s not all that far from the other side of town,” Joe added in case the doctor was unaware that there was a reservation in the area.
What Joe didn’t bother touching on was any of his history, or the fact that he’d been orphaned at an early age and raised by a more or less disinterested committee of distant relatives, all of whom had felt he was someone else’s responsibility.
“Things turned out okay.” He turned to look at Dan. “And you might not think so now, but this will, too. Things have a habit of turning out around here,” he assured Dan.
Dan sighed, looking at the building again. He hadn’t come here for a vacation, he reminded himself. This was all part of the penance he felt he had to undertake.
He frowned, his eyes sweeping over the structure. No question he would have to find a better place to attend to the patients lining up to see him—and soon. The inside of that building was a breeding ground for every bacteria known—and unknown—to man.
What had Warren been thinking when he’d agreed to put down a bid on this place?
A bid.
Dan found the term humorous. A bid would indicate that some sort of competition to secure this pathetic house/office. Who in their right mind would want this place?
Warren. Maybe his brother had seen something here that he wasn’t seeing, Dan speculated. But then, Warren had always been the one to bring home strays and try to mend their broken limbs as well as their broken spirits. This place certainly qualified for that. If ever he’d seen anything broken, this house was it.
First thing tomorrow, he would get on the phone with-some local contractors to make this place inhabitable. Since he’d seen no sign of a hotel in the area, he supposed he would have to rough it for tonight.
He fervently hoped that there was at least running water in the place, but he wasn’t about to place any bets. Bracing himself, he walked up onto the wooden front porch. The moment he did, he heard the wood groan beneath his shoes. It continued to groan with each step he took.
Joe glanced down at the offending slats. “That might need fixing,” he suggested.
Dan deliberately looked down at the boards beneath his feet. “Good guess,” he cracked.
The front door was ajar, with just enough space between it and the doorjamb to allow a medium-size furry invader to slip in. The thought did little to warm Dan’s heart.
Hand on the doorknob, Dan tried it and found that neither the doorknob nor the door would budge.
“Here,” Joe offered, politely edging him out of the way and placing his own torso in front of the offending door. “You don’t want to risk hurting that shoulder of yours.”
“And you can?” Dan asked.
“Part of the job,” was all Joe said.
Anything else he might have said in response died away as both he and Dan became aware of the sound of vehicles approaching in the distance. Dan turned from the house to see several cars, Jeeps mostly, but there was a truck or two as well, coming closer. Was it starting already?
“They don’t give you much time to set up here, do they?” he asked the deputy.
Well, whatever their complaints were, unless it pertained to a heart attack or a gunshot wound, the good citizens of One-Horse Town were going to have to wait until he had a chance to settle in and get the medical office in some kind of working order. He had his medical bag with him but he had a feeling that he would need a lot more in his supply closet before he could consider the place up and running.
Joe made no attempt to answer him. Instead, the deputy left his side and walked up to the first vehicle. He shouted out several names, greeting the people who were now disembarking, spilling out onto the front yard like the inhabitants of a circus clown car.
And every single one of them, man, woman and child alike, carried tools.
Confused, Dan looked to Joe for an explanation, but the deputy had moved on and was now busy, talking to a slender, dark-haired young woman with a quick smile and green flashing eyes. Dan didn’t remember seeing her at the diner. Probably couldn’t wiggle her way in, he speculated. The place had been crowded beyond belief by the time he and Joe had left.
And now they were all here. Why they had come with tools, he couldn’t begin to fathom—unless they were looking to barter, trading an item they thought he might need or want in exchange for his medical services.
He was fairly certain he was right. It felt like that kind of a place. A throwback to a simpler time.
Dan made up his mind to address his patients en masse. It saved time. “I can’t see any of you until I’ve had a chance to sanitize the exam room.” Assuming that’s even possible. He might just be taking things for granted.
“That’s why we’re here, Doc,” the sheriff told him, making his way to the front of the gathering. “We thought an extra pair of hands—or seven—might just help that along as bit.”
Burning the building down to the ground and starting from scratch would help even more. But Dan thought it wise to keep that observation to himself.
Instead, he saw more vehicles approaching on the horizon. “Looks like more than just a couple of extra pairs of hands to me.”
The sheriff flashed a grin as he inclined his head in agreement. “Math was never my strong suit. C’mon,” he urged, “let’s see how bad it really is.”
One hand holding on to a rather massive toolbox, Rick placed another hand on Dan’s shoulder, acting as if they were old friends instead of two men who’d met only a couple of hours ago.
As the sheriff urged him into the house, with Joe and a man who’d introduced himself earlier as Mick Henley, the town mechanic, bringing up the rear, Dan saw yet another vehicle pull up in front of the house. Tina, the blonde he’d talked to at the diner, and the sheriff’s wife, Olivia, got out. Between them, the women were carrying a rather large, unwieldy cooler.
“Miss Joan thought you might need this,” Olivia said, addressing her words to her husband.
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